


too much blood on the page

by Nokomis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Argent is standing outside his front door. Derek knew that moving to a permanent address meant trouble; Argents shouldn’t know where he lives.  (Post-3x03)</p>
            </blockquote>





	too much blood on the page

**Author's Note:**

> For Sandrine! Spoilers through episode 3x03; takes place just after that episode.

Argent is standing outside his front door.

Derek knew that moving to a permanent address meant trouble; Argents shouldn’t know where he lives. And yet, he can hear the steady heartbeat and the scuffling of a boot against the floor and the unmistakably acrid scent of gun oil.

“Come on, Hale, I know you’re in there,” Argent says. It’s a normal speaking tone; he probably used intentionally it to remind himself that he’s at a werewolf’s front door.

Isaac is at school and there’s no one here to protect, just himself, so he gets up – still stiff from the rip and tear of Cora ( _Cora_ ) and Boyd’s claws – and opens the door, leaning against it to look casual.

“Why haven’t you taught your wolves anything?” Argent demands. He doesn’t look Derek in the eye, but keeps his eyes moving, taking in Derek’s apartment, the angle of the door, clearly cataloguing possible exits and possible openings for attack.

“I try,” Derek says. It’s curt but more revealing than he intends; Argent has him on the offense already. Derek takes a deep breath.

“You knew how to do everything I taught them last night,” Argent says confidently. 

“Scott trusted you to teach him,” Derek says. He doesn’t say: I don’t know what it means to be human, so I don’t know what to teach them. It baffles him, sometimes, the things his wolves can’t figure out by instinct when that was all he needed. 

He knows he’s faltering at his job, at leading, at being _Alpha_ , and that’s why he’s slowly losing Isaac. Why he never had Scott. 

And why he’s too terrified to go in the basement, to be there when Cora wakes up.

“And he doesn’t trust you,” Argent says. It’s not smug, his tone. More… confused.

“I’m not good at teaching to Scott the way he needs to be taught,” Derek says, offering enough truth that Argent doesn’t need to look any deeper. “But he knows that I would do anything to save him, if it came to that.”

Victoria’s blood had been bitter in his mouth, but he won’t tell Argent that. Won’t tell him that he’d hoped that she wouldn’t go through with the suicide, that he thought Allison would have been reason enough for her to stay.

That he doesn’t think he turned her into a monster.

Argent’s jaw tightens. He pushes the door open, steps inside Derek’s home. “Allison asked me if I knew why you bit my wife.”

“Did you?” Derek pushes the door shut and hopes that Peter chooses to stay away today. Argent clearly needs to talk about what happened, and Peter will just needle at him until he snaps and tries to kill them.

Derek thinks he could take Argent, but he doesn’t really want to try. 

(Cora is _alive._ )

“Yes,” Argent says. His voice is sharp and echoes in the empty corners of Derek’s apartment. “Victoria didn’t keep secrets from me.”

“Just from her daughter,” Derek says. “She didn’t have to die. You know that as well as I do.”

“She did, if she was going to remain true to herself,” Argent says, eyes slightly wild. Derek knows what it is to love the dead, and he feels a strange satisfaction that Argent feels that particular pain now too. “You didn’t have the right to talk about her to Allison.”

Derek watches Argent carefully, watches the way he paces the floor and keeps his eyes on windows and doors. Marking exits, especially since Derek is between him and the front door.

“You and Scott were both trying too hard to protect her,” Derek says after a moment, before he starts to feel like he’s hunting the man.”She’s not a child, Argent. She turned herself into a threat, attacked my pack, and I’m not going to tread lightly for fear of her feelings. She shouldn’t be going into anything blind, not when she’s as dangerous as she is.”

This makes Argent stop, and Derek can see the tension in his shoulders. Hear the way his heartbeat incrementally increases. “You see her as a threat.”

Derek didn’t realize the man was so blind. “If you’re not careful, she’s going to turn into Kate.”

He tries his best to stay neutral, to keep his voice bland as he says her name. But Cora is in the basement, Cora who didn’t die in the fire (or maybe she did. Peter came back, why couldn’t she?) and Kate is the one in the ground.

He thinks maybe, judging by Argent’s face, that Kate never told her brother just how she managed to start that fire. That Argent is seeing another ugly aspect of who his sister was.

Derek’s already raw from his sister rending his flesh. He doesn’t need to think about those old wounds, too, no matter how fresh they feel every time he sees Scott falling under Allison’s spell. 

(It isn’t fair, not when Allison is as different from her aunt as Derek is different from his own uncle, but Scott’s innocence and Allison’s competence ring all the wrong bells for him, send shivers down his spine and make him think of all those times he would wake up shivering from nightmares he couldn’t describe to Laura.)

“I won’t let that happen to her,” Argent says, and it’s the first time one of their family has implied out loud that there was something _wrong_ with Kate. 

Derek looks away from him, out the window. “You should leave.”

Argent doesn’t. He sits down on the couch, outward visage calm, but heart pounding like a fleeing deer. Derek tenses; Argent doesn’t get nervous unless there’s a reason.

“I want to continue our truce,” Argent says.

“ _What_.” It’s probably not the most diplomatic answer, but Derek was on edge enough about working with Argent for the _night_ , and now the man is suggesting continuing the truce.

Minutes after bringing up the fact that he believes Derek is responsible for his wife’s death. 

“I know that this is difficult, given our past,” Argent begins, but Derek interrupts.

“Our past? Your family _burned mine alive_ ,” Derek says. “You’ve tried to kill me. You’ve tried to kill my pack.”

“And you killed my wife and sister,” Argent says heatedly. “Don’t play like you’re the victim, when you’re the monster here.”

Derek clenches his jaw, settles the anger deep within his bones so that the wolf inside doesn’t bleed through and show in his eyes and teeth. 

“But,” Argent says, before Derek is composed enough to speak, “I believe that you are the lesser of two evils.”

“You want the Alphas gone,” Derek says. It’s what he wants; it stands to reason Argent does too, especially now that he knows how close they’ve gotten to harming Allison.

“Yes,” Argent says. “My resources are limited, as are yours. But I believe that, combined, we stand a chance.”

“They had my sister,” Derek says. The word is strange in his mouth; Laura’s been gone a year. “I don’t know how, but they had her locked up and wanted to force me to kill her.”

“And you didn’t,” Argent says.

Derek traces a line down his arm, where there had been a gouge deep enough to see bone last night. Sees Cora’s animal eyes glowing, sees nothing but teeth and claws where intelligence ought to have been.

“You know how important family is,” Derek says. 

“Would I be here otherwise?” Argent’s heartbeat is steady now.

He knows Derek will do anything to save the family he’s got left, and for once, Derek knows that he and Argent have the same intention.

“They can’t know,” he says, because something this big, it has to be kept secret. A team-up between hunters and werewolves is rare, and the Alpha pack will know of the history between the Hale family and the Argents. Argent doesn’t need clarification; he knows that Derek means to keep this between the two of them.

“We’ll coordinate our efforts. Narrow in on them without them realizing we’re coming from two fronts,” Argent says brusquely, clearly more comfortable talking now that Derek has agreed to the plan.

“Agreed,” Derek says. He pauses, thinks about the way Argent brought up all the bad blood between them before suggesting working together. Thinks that maybe he passed Argent’s test by not snapping, by not snarling.

The man is shrewd, but, Derek thinks, unused to existing in a world where more people you loved were dead and unreachable than alive within your grasp. 

(Cora is in the basement, sleeping off her captivity. Sleeping off the reckless moon.)

So he warns him. “Don’t include Peter in any of your plans, not even as a backup.”

Argent gives him a measured look. “Don’t you trust him?”

Derek smiles tightly, knowing Argent will understand it. “He killed our sisters, Argent, and then dragged himself out of his own grave. Does that sound like a man who should be trusted?”

“I appreciate your candor,” Argent says. He stands. “I’ll let you know when I have more information, and I hope that you’ll do the same for me.”

“This isn’t going to be easy,” Derek warns, because he knows perfectly well that Argent has never faced an Alpha pack. No hunter has; they’re too elusive.

“I don’t know about you,” Argent says, moving towards the door, “but I could use the distraction.”

Derek thinks of Erica’s body, light in his arms, and Boyd’s shattered face just before passing out from sheer exhaustion, and of Cora, Cora, Cora.

“I was thinking revenge.”


End file.
